Fibrous titanic acid metal salts having a ratio of length to diameter of at least 10 and processes for preparing the same are described.
Bivalent metal salts of titanic acid are known. However, these known salts are not known to exist as fibrous compounds but only as powders or granulated salts. The known powdered or granulated salts include barium titanate, lead titanate, calcium titanate, and strontium titanate. These compounds are useful as the dielectric in capacitors, in ultrasonic vibrators in the form of ceramic piezo-elements, in ceramic filters, and in automatic igniters. Additionally, recently various uses for these compounds have developed in ceramic semiconductors. Because of these uses there is commercial mass production of these compounds for their incorporation as raw ceramic materials.
The prior art process of producing these compounds includes two calcination steps one of which is at temperatures above 1300.degree. C. After calcination, tituration, reblending, and granulation is necessary prior to molding these materials into the final ceramic products. Because these materials are molded as powders or granules the final product produced after a calcination step is prone to cracking. Additionally because these products are molded as powders or granules it is necessary to utilize binders or other special devices to maintain the shapes of the greenware prior to heating of the same.
Titane dioxide compounds are known for their poor scinterability. This poor scinterability is carried forth to the known bivalent metal salts of titanic acid when the titanic acid is prepared from the dioxide compounds by the prior art methods. Molding difficulties are also encountered. Ceramic products prepared using these prior art compounds are prone to having crystal formation within the product being expressed as a random multicrystal aggregation. The randomness of the crystal thus degrades or destroys any anisotropic characteristics within the final product.